Sawatch
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Feb 19, 2025 · Sawatch
Snowpack
I dug on east below treeline and found a shallow snowpack with poor snowpack structure but I did not get any propagating results in an ECT. I also dug on southeast NTL and found a snowpack 150 cm deep with about 60 cm of recent snow. Below the recent snow is a crust and then a thin layer of facets that are not very weak. In places I found frozen melt water in the weak layer, which is similar to what I found on a southeast NTL slope in the Front Range at the start of the storm. Lastly, I dug on northeast near treeline and found a relatively strong snowpack that was 2 meters deep. I did not find any upper weak layer of concern. The weakest layer is about 150 cm down and this is the Dec 9th weak layer.
Avalanche
A scattering of D2 avalanches. Avalanche activity was less than expected. It's possible avalanches ran earlier in the storm and crowns are obscured. It was interesting to see a few very steep loaded slopes sustain large cornice fall with no subsequent avalanche.